Dolphins, attendants to the Poseidon, Greek god of the sea and patron deity to sailors, is sometimes referred to as the sailor's friend. They were also chosen to represent the Submarine Service because of the characteristic way in which dolphins dive and surface.
In the summer of 1923, while serving as Commander, Submarine Division Three, Captain Ernest J. King proposed that the Navy create a warfare insignia device for qualified submariners. The insignia came to be known as “dolphins” or “fish,” and is one of the Navy's oldest warfare devices.
United States Navy Submarine Warfare Insignia. Criteria: The Submarine Warfare Insignia (also known as "dolphins" or "fish") is a uniform breast insignia worn by enlisted men and officers of the United States Navy to indicate that they are qualified in submarines.
The submarine insignia was to be worn at all times by officers and enlisted personnel qualified in submarine duty attached to submarine units or organizations, ashore and afloat, and not to be worn when not attached.
Enlisted Sailors and Navel Officers wear a dolphins uniform breast pin to indicate that they are qualified in submarines. The Submarines insignia is considered one of the Navy's three major enlisted warfare pins.
Submarine veterans, many of whom belong to the national U.S. Submarine Veterans reunion association, regularly wear hats, vests, shirts, and even belt buckles adorned with submarine dolphins. Unsurprisingly, the submarine warfare insignia is considered one of the most difficult to earn in the Navy.
The Dolphin Code
Loosely based on the Air Force's 'Falcon Code', it was designed to allow the submarine to send a brief message to ships and aircraft during an exercise.
It is important to note that the dolphins on the insignia are fish (also known as dorado or mahi-mahi). In Greek mythology, these creatures were attendants of Poseidon, god of the sea.
Submarines can submerge more than 600 feet below the ocean's surface for up to four months at a time, constantly patrolling and working classified missions. You can't always see them, but they are always silently moving under the sea doing important work.
Since Bangor, Washington, now houses the largest single nuclear weapons site in the world, it needs protection from all sides, including the seaward side. That's where the Navy's dolphin pods and sea lions come in.
The turquoise stripe represents the Caribbean Sea. The three dolphins represent endurance, unity, and strength, and their circular arrangement represents community. The flag was designed by Marvin Oberman and Lydia Gumbs.
These privileges in view of their obligations are almost ludicrously small, nevertheless, it is the spur which has given the Navy its greatest mariners: the men and women of the Submarine Service. It is a duty which most richly deserves the proud and time-honored title - SUBMARINER.
Power. Dolphins often ride the wake of a boat in order to move quickly through the water while exerting less effort. Similar to the way a surfer catches a wave, a dolphin can ride a boat wake for a bit of forward momentum that enables it to travel great distances without having to do as much of the work.
They help install new upgrades to the boat's systems, and get trained up on how to use them. They perform deferred maintenance. They attend schools. And perhaps most importantly, they get to know their families once again after protracted periods of absence.
In the Navy hull classification “SSBN,” the letters “SS” stand for submersible ship, B denotes ballistic missiles, and the N indicates it is nuclear powered.
During the Soviet era, Russia used the Sevastopol base to train dolphins to search for mines and plant explosives on ships, according to the Moscow Times. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine inherited the dolphins and retrained them as therapy animals for special needs children.
The water pressure on the outer hatch is always greater than the air pressure inside the submarine, which prevents opening the hatch. Only when the pressure inside the escape chamber is equal to the sea pressure can the hatch be opened.
With that being said, your next question may instantly be “How long should I stay in the shower for?” The easy answer is, as long as you want but traditionally should be between 3-5 minutes.
Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe which reached a record depth of about 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific.
Unlike his naval colleagues serving on surface ships, a fully qualified submariner, whatever his trade, can take an individual through his boat and explain, in great detail, what everything in the boat does and how to operate it - even in complete darkness. That takes training and it is called earning your dolphins.
For over 60 years, the U.S. Navy has trained dolphins to perform various military-related tasks. There are currently about 70 dolphins in the Marine Mammal Program.
Based at Haifa, the Israeli Navy (IN) currently operates five modern diesel-electric Dolphin-class submarines. All were designed and constructed by Germany's Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW).
To earn the right to wear "fish" or "dolphins", prospective submariners complete an extensive qualification process that lasts about one year (for both enlisted and officers, though the two programs differ significantly) and covers all of the submarine's systems.
To this day, seafaring cultures continue to value dolphins as a symbol of protection. Sailors of many nations consider a dolphin to be lucky, or a good omen. Often, this was for practical reasons, as pods of dolphins frequent shipping lanes and coastal areas where humans dwell.
Silver dolphins were the mark of the sonarman who could fire a flare from the engine room signal ejector, or the nuclear-trained reactor operator who could surface the boat if need be.